Tag Archives: finding

Elder Williams is Training!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well it was a great week! we were working hard and were very busy! We had some interesting turn of events with some of our investigators and some good things happening as we went to the streets.

First our investigator Frankie turned out not to live in our area. He is right on the line, but falls on the KLC side. We will be turning him over to the sisters tonight. But we are fasting with him right now, and the sisters decided to join us, that he can get an answer. We will be following up with him tonight at the turnover. He was one of the investigators we were hoping could be baptized this month. I hope the transition goes well he has been meeting with Elders here for several months. Brother Mak who had a date for this month is still not back. The west point sisters were able to talk with him about his concerns. Its a good thing the Sisters can see him everyday I feel like it will help him. Our other investigator Emily is doing better she was able to eat with some of the sisters, so she has been getting a lot of member involvement. That is really good because fellowship will help a lot she comes to find her own answer.

We have been working really well together and our teaching and finding is in pretty good unity. We had a bit of an interesting week with not as much time as we would like to find. But when we did get out we worked hard and made the most of it. We have a good drive while finding even if its a long stretch. I actually really like city finding. A lot of missionaries prefer going to big estates but I would pick the streets. Its harder to teach a sit down lesson but its a better variety of people. Only certain types of people sit in an estate in the middle of the day.

The ward is doing really well it seems like a lot of people want to do missionary work and we are constantly getting names of less actives and hearing about different things members are doing. It will be a great ward for this new trainee to come into. I will miss TST ward, I was able to build up a good relationship really quick. But i will serve my best wherever I am sent.

A big thing we have talked about with the ward and as a companionship is less active work. Gratefully with the wards effort there is a fairly big group of less actives that are incontact with the members still, so they are priority number one for us. There is a lot of good work to be done and just not enough time its seems.

But a lot of big changes going on here. We are taking a big hit in Elders right now. Then in a few months its coming right back to normal. President is doing all sorts of stuff to prepare the mission for President Lam here in July.

But its all good I love you all have a great week!
Elder Jared Cordon

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I Didn’t Even Realize It Was Raining…

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Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a pretty amazing week and a half. The work is moving along great and it humbles me more and more everyday as I see the lord at work. We hard 3 exchanges happen and so plenty of learning has taken place! We have also seen some cool success with our investigators!

The first exchange: I went with Elder Anderson(we share an apartment) to his area in Kowloon City. At the start of the exchange we set some lofty goals in contrast to the numbers that they had been seeing. But we were determined. We had a six hour finding block and we wanted to have 3 lessons and 2 of those rescheduled. Well the first hour and half burned by real quick. But as we were passing through a pretty quiet estate we saw a street cleaner resting in the shade we said hello and he didnt respond so we keep going. As we walked away I had this really strong impression that we had to go back and talk and I questioned the thought at firs, then I had the thought “this is a test go back and talk to him”. Well we went back and talked to him and we sparked a really good conversation. We were not able to get him to interested in listening but it brought a smile to all of our faces. 

After him it was only about a minute and we already contacting, later teaching someone else. We couldn’t reschedule, then right after we said good bye there was another lady that we contacted who was a former from Tai Po, we got here number, then we needed to head to a new area just shortly after being there we met someone just getting off work and taught him a lesson, we rescheduled him. At this point its raining really hard but, we didn’t care we were gonna reach our goal. Just shortly later almost out of finding we were teaching someone else and we were able to reschedule him. This exchange was great for the both of us and we really learned a lot, also a great blessing is one of those people is still meeting with those elders!

The second Exchange: This was with the Assistants and it was great! The day we switched Elder Williams and I had already been fonged by 7 people(thats a new record for me), but just right before we switched we went out to make up for our losses and taught two lessons and rescheduled both of them. Putting us in a great mood for exchanges. Elder Ly and I were able to teach another lesson that night as well. The next day was mainly teaching which was really good we had some great lesson and I was able to learn and absorb his great teaching skills. He is really good at being simple, bold, and too the point!

The Third Exchange: This one was was with Elder Ah Mu over in Tsuen Wan. We were also able to have a lot of great success together, given only about and hour of finding time we made several great contacts and taught two lessons. That area is really a great place to find. It was great as well being reminded of what its like training and focusing on a district as well. Elder Ah Mu really knows how to focus on other people. He really has excelled in his assignments. It was also really cool to see how the apartment was so focused that night we all had a really great discussion on teaching skills and how we could improve our studies. Elder Ah Mu came up with a great plan, using President Hawks advice and preach my gospel, on how to improve teaching skills. I took a copy and I am going to try it out over the next couple of days.

These exchanges were all very beneficial and very focused. Another interesting note is everyone that i went with entered the MTC with me. So it was really cool to see how we all have been progressing and working so hard. Truly you can see how the lord has shaped us all so differently!

On another note we saw two of our investigators really start moving along. Emiley a new one we been able to see a few times has accepted a date. Edward another who has been seeing missionaries for several months has finally come to church, although he missed sacrament he enjoyed the other stuff. Things are really going well here and we hope they just keep getting better.

It was an exciting time I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love Elder Jared Cordon!

#BecauseHeLives

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Dear Family and Friends,

I just got to my new area this week. Lots of exciting things happening we are teaching a lot of people and with Easter coming up we are able to talk to so many people about the true meaning of Easter. Jesus Christ Lives, and because He lives we can to. He gave us the best gift that was ever given, the Atonement and an empty tomb.  The empty tomb is such a very important part of the process. All of the suffering in the Garden, all of the whippings, all of the hatred from the people, the betrayal, and His death would have just been another story had it not been that He was the Son Of God and was called to rise again. 

He gave us an empty tomb, so that our graves would have no hold on us. Everyone person that has every lived will rise again. The question is what are we going to do with that gift that has been given to us. Are we going to waste are time here on this earth or are we going to work towards the life that we can have. This life does end, We All Will Die, but the life hereafter does not end and that is the life that we need to be preparing for. 

General Conference is Coming. This weekend We All have the privilege of listening to the man that are called of God to lead this church, but they are not just the leaders for our church alone. They are called of God to be the Prophets for the world. They receive revelation from God for what the world needs to hear and do to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. So Everyone needs to watch it. Invite those that you know to join in this wonderful event. So that we can hear what God wants to tell us. 
I know that this church is true. I know that we have a prophet on the earth today and I know Jesus Christ Lives.
 
Love you all so much.
 
Elder S Cordon.

Good Start

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Dear Family and Friends, 

Well what a wonderful first full week in Macau! I really like it here the people are nice and from what we can see pretty receptive we were able to meet a lot of people and help a lot start having interest to be taught now while all may not be being taught by us they are still coming unto to Christ. But what goes around comes around because we were also able to meet a young man that the other Elders found. 

We were able to meet with our investigator A-Hou and find out why he has not come to church for two weeks also why he stopped reading and praying. Now we have re-motivated him and he has started reading again and he came to church yesterday. Sadly his fellow-shipper has not come for two weeks who is also a recent convert so that’s another thing we are going to try and fix this week. Also we met with another Investigator who is the one we still need to turn over. Brother Mak, he is the man who was going to be baptized then last second found out he couldn’t because of the Elders not realizing where he lived. But I think this is really for the best because after meeting with him there is a lot he didn’t understand, for example he thought he could just go get baptized in another church, but the best reason for waiting is now he is working to get a new job and applied to have Sundays off. So we are praying really hard that he can have that blessing and then start to be able to attend the other branch. We wanted to turn him over but he said until he figures out his job situation he doesn’t want to meet the other Elders.  

We now have some decent Less Active work. Yesterday a man walked into church with his family, he was active 10 years ago when he got baptized, after talking to him I found out that he came back because he realizes that his kids are growing up really fast and need the gospel. So after talking to the sisters we are going to work on helping him get back and active then once we get going with him then we can help the sisters to start teaching his wife. We feel like its best for us to work together on this one. We also had another LA man walk into church and he wants us to meet him so we will see what we can do. We also met with another Less Active who has a desire to come back we are just working to build his faith so he can make it happen. 

We also were able to meet with a few members to share the Worth of Souls project that the Sister Training leaders and the Zone leaders came up with, its mainly with visiting members and helping them understand some ways they can do missionary work and then working to get a name. It went really well this week we will be following up with the families hoping to be receiving some names. they were all very receptive and want to share the gospel it might just take a few follow ups to really see some big results. We also had a young mens biking activity which went well we had 1 Recent Convert 1 Investigator and 1 Less Active. The activity went well and the young men enjoyed themselves that helped a lot in getting our investigator to church yesterday.

We have some other things we are working on with the Branch, one is a big street display coming up in April they want the whole ward involved. It will have some games and information about what the church offers. It will have primary kids singing songs and a lot of other stuff hopefully it really goes well. I know its really getting pushed by the Branch members which is awesome because the main target is families and they can find them a lot better than we can! 

Here are some pictures.

Love you all!
​

Elder Jared Cordon 

     

The Work Moves On

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Dear Family and Friends, 

This week was a riveting roller coaster ride of emotion. Everyday was very eventful! A couple of highlights can be really help you see where I am coming from.

On Tuesday we were biking to a few potentials and street contacting on the way when I saw a girl headed my direction. She was carrying a red gas can and was clearly headed to the gas station behind me. I approached her and asked if she needed any help, and if her car ran out of gas. She said that she would be alright and that she lived around the corner and was just getting gas for the lawn mower. I moved the conversation to the gospel. Noticing that she had her hands full, literally, I suggested that we come back another time and share our message with her. She, to our surprise, told us to go and visit her mom right then and that she would be willing to listen. 

Happily acting on that suggestion we rode right to her moms house and knocked on the door. Right when she answered she invited us right in and started to pick up a few things to make room for us on her couch. Turns out she was a Mormon when she was a young teenager but went inactive many years ago. We had an awesome conversation and she agreed to come to scripture class the next night. Along with this woman, Michelle, we found a bunch of people in the area that we talked to and got return appointment with. 

On Wednesday we had a solid day lined up with several member present lessons, service, and the scripture class. Everything cancelled except the service. So after a fun service project which included a great lunch where the main dish was crab. We spent the rest of the day knocking doors. It was a long day. We found a few solid potentials though so it definitely wasn’t all for not.

For rest of the week everything went very well! We were very busy and we found many elect souls! The Montcrief family we met while they were sitting in their garage just enjoying the good weather. We approached them with the intent of talking about families. That beautiful family of 6 then accepted a return appointment.

The other was Rusty. When we knocked on his door he came out to talk to us and about an hour latter we had taught the whole restoration lesson and he readily accepted the Book of Mormon telling us that Mormons were the only religion in America that was the “real deal.” We are excited to see where he goes in the next little while.

Finding new souls is basically been our focus over the past several weeks. Hopefully now we can change the focus to helping all these
wonderful souls along their new life-changing journeys.

I had to write quick this week because I was taking care of other things, but I hope y’all have a great week.

Love, 

Elder Joshua Cordon

The Thick of Thin Things

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Dear Family and Friends, 

This past week brought a lot of change for me. After serving a wonderful 8 months in the blessed Mandarin 2nd ward it was time for me to move on to the next step. As part of the transition I am blessed with the opportunity to train Elder Curran. He is from Clearfield, Utah and so far we have enjoyed every minute. Our personalities really mesh, so it has been easy to get unified quick and get to work. We are in a car share as well, so we have been on biking a lot. 

“White-washing” an area as they call it has been a wonderful experience so far. I got a similar opportunity when I started my mission so it has been reminiscent and very fun. We are doing our best to reach out and become familiar with the members as soon as we can. We are loving the ward so far and we can tell that a lot of good things are going to happen here. Last week alone was full of amazing miracles. Every single night after 8:00, with the exception of Friday night because we were playing basketball with some investigators, we found someone new to teach. Often missionaries will consider that a less productive time to find, but it has been an hour of miracles for us. We plan to keep that going for as long as we can. 

On Sunday after church we were having a correlation meeting with the sisters and the Ward Mission Leader and his assistant and we started talking about the different reasons that members havent been sharing the gospel. Something that was brought up involved that idea that people are simply filling there schedules with too much “stuff.” They simply are not putting into practice the age old principles taught in the object lesson of trying to fit rocks, pebbles, and sand all in a jar. I reflected on how my last ward mission leader somehow made so much time for missionary work, even though he was a full time law student, had a young child, and worked 20 hours a week.

To my surprise that same theme was reinforced this morning during my personal study when I was reading a conference talk by A. Theodore Tuttle given October of 1971. The title of the talk was The Things That Matter Most. There was this quote in it that I really enjoyed!

Some years ago, I read an editorial in the Deseret News entitled “The Mechanical Rabbit.” I quote:

“Most of our readers must have smiled the other day when they read of the greyhounds in Britain who don’t know a rabbit when they see one. So long had they chased a mechanical rabbit around the racetrack, that when a real rabbit bounded across the track, the dogs didn’t give it a second look.“Stupid, eh? But sad too, this perverting of the natural instincts. …“We chase mechanical rabbits, too.“We chase paychecks, and don’t give a second look to the glint of the rising sun on a snow-topped peak.“We chase our way through the appointments of a crowded desk calendar, and fail to take time to chat with the next-door neighbor or to drop in on a sick friend.“We chase social pleasures on a glittering noisy treadmill—and ignore the privilege of a quiet hour telling bedtime stories to an innocent-eyed child.“We chase prestige and wealth, and don’t recognize the real opportunities for joy that cross our paths. …”Wordsworth said words appropriate to this condition:“The world is too much with us: late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”“Race on, you poor, blind over-civilized hounds. You’ll never catch your rabbit until you learn to recognize a genuine one.“But, you’ll have company in your race; the company of unnumbered men who’ll never catch the joy they chase until they, too, learn to recognize a genuine one.”This points up our challenge: See “that the things that matter most … are not at the mercy of things that matter least.” (Ashley Montague.)Someone rephrased this thought: “Too often we are involved in the thick of thin things.”In modern revelation the Lord said:“Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?“Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men. …” (D&C121:34–35.)



The moral of that story and the reason I have brought it up, is that I hope all of us will take time to prioritize our lives and if necessary stop spending time doing the things that don’t matter most if they prevent us from doing the things that do. The great blessing of coming into an area with a companion who isnt already serving there is that you get a fresh start, and an opportunity to make sure that your priorities are straight without having to do the sometimes painful process of re-prioritizing. I has been a great blessing to engage in the simple things for often that is how miracles are most often experienced. For me, learning to prioritize has been a blessing of my mission.

 Hopefully these sentiments are beneficial!

I love yall!
Elder Joshua Cordon 

Referrals!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well a wonderful week is under wraps. It was one of those weeks where you don’t see any of your usual people and it has lots of finding; which is ironic due to the fact that finding was our huge focus when we planned for last week, I guess you get what you plan for. One thing we did last week was take presidents advice and do consecrated finding. When we did weekly planning we prayed and picked two hour blocks everyday that we would not move for anything, and then we would pray about those days all week. Well we saw many many cool miracles happening every single finding time had something very unique to bring and we really saw the lord rewarding us for our faith. We also had our zone training this last week and its one of the best that I have ever had. So many things very specific for my needs.

Also personal accomplishment of my mission is I have finally mastered personally cutting my own hair. I got it down. Clippers on the sides scissors on the top and I even got thinning scissors mastered. It was hard at first but i got it down now.

I named this email referrals because this last week we received four referrals!! sadly none were from the ward but 3 are from investigators and 1 is from church headquarters which will be the first my entire mission! so that gives a lot to work with. One of the investigators was reading the tree of life vision and when he read the verse where lehi tastes of the fruit and then desires his family to partake he had a really strong feeling to invite his family so he introduced to his daughter and he shared that verse, it was really cool.

Today is also the second time I have finished the Book of Mormon on my mission and the second time really sincerely in my entire life. But I have applied the promise in Moroni 10:3-5 again for the second time after reading the entire thing and again like before it was so good. I don’t get an intense feeling or anything crazy but just a calm peaceful feeling of complete certainty that the book is true. This time I read the remake of the first edition that I have and highlighted when it spoke of christ and also his words. The miracle of the outcome is not only did I come to know about Christ but I come to know Christ more fully in ways that can only be experienced not explained. I know if anybody will follow that invitation they will truly come to know their savior.

I love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

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Live from the apple store!

Record Setter!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well what a wonderful week in Aberdeen. This was the first full week that we had together here and it really shows that we work well together. I don’t think I have had better unity with any companion previous. We set a mission high for both of us at a good 16 other lessons (editors note: lesson without a member present) which is about twice as much as what people call a good week. I am not saying this to gloat but only to glorify God because this is also 4x the high for lessons in the last 5-6 months for the area. We had a pretty crazy schedule this last week with three trips to the north side of the island during the week for activities and missionary meetings & a birthday party at a mental rehabilitation center. Still with time being short throughout all this we often filled those random gaps of time with some great finding and the Lord always put someone in our path who was ready to listen. I have not done really anything different with people than I normally do. Just the Lord felt it was time to really do some work.

With that we also made great progress with Simon who before was really confused and not motivated to being focused and eager to learn more. He really likes speaking English which is good and all but there is a reason the Lord called me Chinese speaking I have a hard time keeping things simple in my native tongue. Although we overcame these barriers and did well. We are also working with two potential families which is so great! next week they should be at church. Also with hope of a third on the way. Things are so good here in Aberdeen! My area is just almost all predominant finding.

We see boats for days and plenty of huge yachts here in Aberdeen, which finds me having a desire to live in a yacht.

Here are some pictures of my last two p-days in butterfly I will get some of Aberdeen soon.

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Love you all,

Elder Jared Cordon

Shh… it’s Steven’s Birthday Saturday… send him your Love!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a great week that was full of new things.

It was my first baptismal interview. That was great to be able to be a part of that families conversion to the gospel. What a way to be able to help them. Elder Ping (my new comp) also had his birthday that was awesome. We also got a training on weekly planning it now takes about 7 hours to do. My comp and I also just started a new way of tracting and finding and so far have had huge success. We are growing our teaching pool and lots of people are looking for the light and we just need to show them where to find it.

I love being on a mission and so excited for all it has to offer.

Elder Steven Cordon

P.S. (Editors Note)Saturday is Steven’s Birthday. He would love to receive notes of love and encouragement. Let’s fill his mailbox with love! Here is his address:

Elder Steven Allen Cordon
Washington Kennewick Mission
8202 W Quinault, Ste D
Kennewick, WA 99336

Good Things to Come

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Dear Family and Friends,

First things first Aaron got the priesthood and it was an amazing thing indeed. Thats the part I really look forward in taking part in. Thats when he receives the greatest tool and blessing the of dear beloved Heavenly Father has to offer. Right now we are working with the ward to strengthen these recent converts and getting the Butterfly Ward prepared for the many more the Lord has in store.

We were worried about Gary this last week, he seemed really off and of course I get worried about him and the gospel. Its hard for me sometimes to think of a world outside of the gospel. It turned out to be just work and he is still moving a long like he needs to be.

We have been realizing the need to focus on the basics the need for new members and investigator to read and pray is everything. I have to come to realize that its our personal devotion to God thats everything. Thats what makes our church so special than what I have come to realize is typical Christianity. God really expects everything from us.

We have been blessed with some miracles this last week. We have been finding it hard to fit finding time in. So when we have it we appreciate it even more. But what we have seen is no matter the length of time the Lord has put a prepared person in our way. We have been able to meet two fathers whose main interest is in their families. How great will be my joy when they enter the waters of Baptism I could picture them in white when I saw them!

Now we are blessed with this opportunity to have summer missionaries. These are young men and women in hong kong who are willing to be a full time missionary for two weeks. So my companionship is split and now Butterfly has 4 elders. I have a great opportunity to influence this young man for the rest of his life. The great thing is he is actually a recent convert. We are gonna see miracles these next two weeks.

PS I say the word miracles so easily cause Its just a common thing you see when your on the Lord errand. Its also not restricted to missionaries. “The Lord is no respecter of persons”

I love you all.

Elder Jared Cordon